#toyhunt: Nori Takes Hong Kong by Josh Coldiron (Part 2/2)
Continuing last week's #toyhunt, we "tag" along with "Guest Blogger" Josh Coldiron (and his kaiju creation Nori") down the streets of Hong Kong (MAP), in search of; TOYS!
JOSH COLDIRON: When you exit CTMA on Dundas Street you will see Angles and a Toy museum in the building across. Angles is mostly cute plush items and the Toy museum was not open my whole visit. You can see if the lights are on from the street, so its worth peeking at before running the many steps to the top.
To the right of the Angel building you will see an alley. Its worth checking out just for the mosaics that line it the whole way through. If you have an interest in collecting shoes, there is a shop worth checking out at the end of the alley.
It is easy to get back since you can see the CTMA building from the alley.
Once you return back to the CTMA you can easily reference the next few centers. If you walk up to Nathan Road and stay on the same block as the CTMA building you can come up to the Sino center. At first it was hard for me to find, but it has a big “S” in a circle on the front and the rest are Chinese characters. Toymart above that is the only giveaway. The trouble is its hard to see the sign when on the sidewalk. The whole first floor is dedicate to timepieces. That makes for a good marker once you figure it out. All its shops are upstairs and down stairs. This is definitely a place you want to visit at night as many shops are not open during the day.
Yes that is a ThreeA Metal Gear Rex.
If you walk all the way around the same block from here or from CTMA you can find Ginza Place across the street. Ginza Plus is sort of hidden but its the downstairs to the left of the main entrance. The map shows it as Ginza Plaza, which confused things further. All the collective Ginas must make up the plaza. The first place you run into specializes in 3A toys as well as 12” figures. There is also a shop that sells nothing but Hot Toys. Its worth wandering around to check out a few other toy shops in there.
If you are wandering around this area you will run across a few TrendyLand shops. They are pretty much Disney Stores, but you may find items not sold in the west.
Now the place I spent the most time was In’s Point. Its a short walk from the CTMA center. If you just stay on Nathan in the same direction the shoe store in the Alley was you will run into it. You can’t miss it with its huge neon lights. There are some shops there open all day, but this is another place really meant to be visited at night. Even more so than the other shops, these are really tight. Some you can not even enter, but have to window shop and request your item from the window. Be sure to visit all the floors. Depending which way you enter, you might miss a floor. The range of toys here is really great. While robots are the primary merchandise, there is also kaiju,, gunpla, 12” figures and a whole range of things to collect. It is worth checking out all the stores. Some stores may appear to only carry one type of item, but you may find hidden gems you may never had expected stuck between things.
This is an example of many shops. This image shows a whole shop. Sometimes shops have a couple of spaces and you have to go to another shop and request an item from a shop that appears closed.
If you leave the CMTA building and follow Dundas Street away from Nathan Road all the way to the corner of 1 Kwong Wa Street you will locate another small shopping center. Here you will find Enterbay, RC shops and quite a few hobby gun shops. The most interesting discovery in this center was JBo Hobby. This is the first place I had ever seen Gsystem kits in person. These are very high end Gundam and Five Star Story resin kits. They might have Volks kits as well. Worth checking out even just to see the gallery of well built kits.
Out of my few days in HK, I was able to verify these places. My images really do not capture the scope of what you will encounter, but there is a good chance you might get overwhelmed and geek out a bit before actually getting anything picked out. I also discovered a couple other nearby destinations that I noted on the map. I was not able to verify these, and you may even discover more hidden gems that I did not find while there. But also check out Ant Toy, and Figure Station. They are close enough to the rest that you should not lose a lot of time by detouring. Be safe and smart on your travels and collect at your own risk. Happy hunting.
- This #toyhunt article is authored entirely by Josh Coldiron for TOYSREVIL!
- All images via Josh Coldiron and are used with kind permission.
- To see more images from this trip check out Nori’s instragram @noritoy
- If you have questions about these shops direct them to @noritoy on Twitter.
- Find Nori here
- Josh blogs @ noritoy.blogspot.com
- You can also reach him via email at info@noritoy.com if you are interested in contracting illustration or design work.
